Investigators from the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s office (Fiscalía del Estado de Jalisco) seized two heavy vehicles with artisanal armor (blindaje artesanal) in a workshop located on a farm in Tuxpan, Jalisco on Thursday, 19 December 2019. The two improvised armored fighting vehicles (IAFVs) are believed to belong to the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). This incident is not unique and represents an ongoing, yet sporadic, pattern of IAFV deployment in Mexico by the cartels over the last decade.

Mexican criminal cartels have been using a range of improvised armored fighting vehicles (IAFVs) since about 2010-2011.[1] These improvised fighting vehicles range from retrofitted armored sports utility vehicles to more specially built units.[2] The lower range vehicles are developed by adding armament and simple armor to pick-up trucks and sports utility vehicles. The more complex versions involve artisanal armor (blindaje artesinal) applied to a range of vehicle platforms.At the lower range of sophistication, we see light armor in vehicles resembling ‘technicals.’ Some recent use of ‘technical-type’ vehicles armed with .50 caliber barrett guns and .50 caliber machine guns include the 17 October 2019 ‘Battle of Culiacán’ where Sinaloa cartel sicaritos engaged security forces to thwart the capture of El Chapo’s son Ovidio Guzmán López[3] and the Cártel de Noroeste (CDN) urban siege in Villa Unión, Coahuila. In the latter, 23 persons were killed in a two-day running gun battle in which the CDN, an off-shoot of the Zetas, used IAFVs:

…some with machine-gun turrets and welded armoring; the doors of many were professionally printed with the initials of a drug cartel. At least four had .50 caliber mounted machine guns. Residents claimed there were at least twice that many pickups, with some escaping.[4]

In the case documented here in Jalisco, more advanced and heavily armored vehicles fabricated in ‘dump truck’ variant with dual rear axles were used. These two vehicles had gun (firing) ports on both sides and the rear of the troop compartment with a turret mounted on top suggesting a squad sized sicario unit could be deployed within them as a mounted infantry force. This type of heavy IAFV is often known as a narcotanque or narco-tanqueta (narco-tank) and monstruos (monster trucks), monstruos blindados(armored monsters), or rinocerontes (Rhino trucks). Collectively, these vehicles with artisanal armor are known as camionetas blindadas (armored trucks). Back in 2011, Sullivan and Elkus noted, “[t]hese crude ‘narcotanques” do confer a decisive tactical advantage when deployed against civil police and dismounted adversaries.”[5] At that time, it was projected that cartels could evolve their tactics to employ their IAFVs as mobile fire support platforms to maneuver and deliver fire support to dismounted troops while cutting off lines of retreat.[6] That TTP is now being refined as recently seen in Culiacán and Villa Unión. The continuing assembly of fabricated artisanal armored vehicles (of varying configuration) is an indicator of evolving tactical proficiency and organizational capacity among criminal cartels.

It should be recognized that such armored vehicles far outclass standard Mexican police armaments and, in the larger heavily armored dump truck variants such as in the case of the two Tuxpan, Jalisco vehicles, are immune to all but SEDENA (Army) and SEMAR (Naval Forces) anti-materiel (.50 Cal) and anti-vehicular weaponry. No RPG screens or stand-off spacing armor (to defeat HEAT rounds) has been noted on these vehicles, either due to a lack of perceived threat and/or lack of design expertise. Further, shell traps and lack of armor curvature usage (for round deflection purposes) is noted in these vehicles, however, anti-mobility targeting protection (by means of the front wheel armor covers and back wheel anti-ballistic screens) is evident. Of ongoing concern related to cartel IAFV design is the armored turret with firing port, which, while still meant for anti-material rifle/heavy machine gun usage, may at some point evolve into a dedicated anti-vehicular weapon (20mm or larger in size).[8]

About the Author(s)

John P. Sullivanwas a career police officer. He is an honorably retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, specializing in emergency operations, transit policing, counterterrorism, and intelligence. He is currently an Instructor in the Safe Communities Institute (SCI) at the Sol Price School of Public Policy - University of Southern California, Senior El Centro Fellow at Small Wars Journal, and Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Global Observatory of Transnational Criminal Networks. Sullivan received a lifetime achievement award from the National Fusion Center Association in November 2018 for his contributions to the national network of intelligence fusion centers. He is co-editor of Blood and Concrete: 21st Century Conflict in Urban Centers and Megacities (Xlibris, 2019), Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-Terrorism Network (Routledge, 2006) and Global Biosecurity: Threats and Responses (Routledge, 2010), Studies in Gangs and Cartels (Routledge, 2013), and The Rise of The Narcostate (Mafia States) (Xlibris, 2018), and co-author of Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency: A Small Wars Journal-El Centro Anthology (iUniverse, 2011). He completed the CREATE Executive Program in Counter-Terrorism at the University of Southern California and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the College of William and Mary, a Master of Arts in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research, and a PhD from the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya). His doctoral thesis was “Mexico’s Drug War: Cartels, Gangs, Sovereignty and the Network State.” His current research focus is the impact of transnational organized crime on sovereignty in Mexico and other countries.

Dr. Robert J. Bunker is an Adjunct Research Professor, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College and Adjunct Faculty, Division of Politics and Economics, Claremont Graduate University. He holds university degrees in political science, government, social science, anthropology-geography, behavioral science, and history and has undertaken hundreds of hours of counterterrorism training. Past professional associations include Distinguished Visiting Professor and Minerva Chair at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College; Futurist in Residence, Training and Development Division, Behavioral Science Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy, Quantico, VA; Staff Member (Consultant), Counter-OPFOR Program, National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center-West; and Adjunct Faculty, National Security Studies M.A. Program and Political Science Department, California State University, San Bernardino, CA. Dr. Bunker has hundreds of publications including Studies in Gangs and Cartels, with John Sullivan (Routledge, 2013), Red Teams and Counterterrorism Training, with Stephen Sloan (University of Oklahoma, 2011), and edited works, including Global Criminal and Sovereign Free Economies and the Demise of the Western Democracies: Dark Renaissance (Routledge, 2014), co-edited with Pamela Ligouri Bunker; Criminal Insurgencies in Mexico and the Americas: The Gangs and Cartels Wage War (Routledge, 2012); Narcos Over the Border: Gangs, Cartels and Mercenaries (Routledge, 2011); Criminal-States and Criminal-Soldiers (Routledge, 2008); Networks, Terrorism and Global Insurgency (Routledge, 2005); and Non-State Threats and Future Wars (Routledge, 2002).